It was only back in September that I shared my enthusiasm over my attendance at the Church Multiplication Association (CMA) conference in Kansas. As I indicated, although relatively new on the scene, CMA has been a tremendous bright spot in the Church of God. Apart from the rapid, loosely-organized expansion in our early days the church planting efforts today coordinated through CMA have been the strongest ever. I can speak from personal experience of CMA's effectiveness, as we have several churches in our district that have been and are being planted with their assistance and guidance.
CMA's strengths have been in their visionary leadership and abundant financial resources. Robin Wood and Gary Kendall have done an amazing job of creating a system that develops not just more churches, but the right kind of churches. This has been fueled by an incredible amount of money that was being funded by some very prosperous and generous business people.
But, the economic downturn of the past year or so has changed much of this. The business interests of the well-heeled donors have been hit hard, in fact, so hard that the bulk of CMA's revenues of dried up. This has resulted in dramatic reduction of CMA staff, and elimination of funding support to its many new churches. Of course, this has halted the ongoing startup of new church plants, and the momentum and energy associated with that.
This should be of considerable concern to us, as church planting has demonstrated itself to be the most effective means for Kingdom expansion. Of course, we don't need CMA to plant churches, but the reality is that our track record for church planting outside of CMA has been far from stellar. What is needed is a culture of church multiplication that permeates our congregations. Ideally, all churches should be working strategically toward establishing new congregations within the varied people groups around them. For the most part this is not happening.
CMA's value to Church of God has not only been in the actual planting of new churches, but in reinvigorating this essential aspect of church growth within our movement. Of course, we could argue that Church of God Ministries should be leading the charge on this, and the Church Multiplication division, under John Newton, has tried their best; but limited funds, especially after the recent cutbacks, has hindered this further. Sadly, even their annual church planting bootcamp held at the North American Convention was canceled this year due to insufficient registrations.
Obviously, the matter of church planting and even the current state of CMA deserves our prayer attention. The future of church planting is closely linked with the future of the church itself.
CMA's strengths have been in their visionary leadership and abundant financial resources. Robin Wood and Gary Kendall have done an amazing job of creating a system that develops not just more churches, but the right kind of churches. This has been fueled by an incredible amount of money that was being funded by some very prosperous and generous business people.
But, the economic downturn of the past year or so has changed much of this. The business interests of the well-heeled donors have been hit hard, in fact, so hard that the bulk of CMA's revenues of dried up. This has resulted in dramatic reduction of CMA staff, and elimination of funding support to its many new churches. Of course, this has halted the ongoing startup of new church plants, and the momentum and energy associated with that.
This should be of considerable concern to us, as church planting has demonstrated itself to be the most effective means for Kingdom expansion. Of course, we don't need CMA to plant churches, but the reality is that our track record for church planting outside of CMA has been far from stellar. What is needed is a culture of church multiplication that permeates our congregations. Ideally, all churches should be working strategically toward establishing new congregations within the varied people groups around them. For the most part this is not happening.
CMA's value to Church of God has not only been in the actual planting of new churches, but in reinvigorating this essential aspect of church growth within our movement. Of course, we could argue that Church of God Ministries should be leading the charge on this, and the Church Multiplication division, under John Newton, has tried their best; but limited funds, especially after the recent cutbacks, has hindered this further. Sadly, even their annual church planting bootcamp held at the North American Convention was canceled this year due to insufficient registrations.
Obviously, the matter of church planting and even the current state of CMA deserves our prayer attention. The future of church planting is closely linked with the future of the church itself.
13 comments:
Hi Lloyd,
First, let me say that I believe in church planting and have particiated in two church plants.
However, considering the current state of affairs in the US, are there other alternatives?
Starting a new church is enormously expensive. Could we use that money in a better way? How would the people in other countries grow the Kingdom? They certainly would not throw gobs of money at the problem as we do in the US.
I think this particular method of church planting is a US-European centered idea that doesn't really work elsewhere.
Thoughts anyone?
"Anonymous",
I would tend to agree with you that there probably are better models we need to use (and or develop) that are not so resource-laden.
My point is that at least CMA has been doing something to get us thinking about and acting on church planting.
As you suggest, the current economic realities may force us to use other models (i.e. a good thing). But, unless we are operating with a Kingdom mission and vision we will probably end up doing not even doing that, and therefore do little or no church planting.
Agreed. CMA is actually doing something and that is better than nothing.
I also agree that if we allow CMA to disappear, we may find we are back to doing nothing.
Is there no middle ground? How do we motivate people, supposedly Christian people, who are not vocational ministers to become Kingdom minded? That is where the focus used to be, but anymore it seems that congregations expect the pastors to do all the "growing" of a church.
The greatest shortfall here is the lack of pastors who have vision to reach out beyond their local church field, to cultivate people and places for new church plants. Wayne
But is church planting the only successful Kingdom growth model?
What is your point? Evangelism is always the call of the church, but we'll never reach the world simply 1 by 1, except on a piece of numerical paper.
Hi Wayne,
I'm not sure I really have a point. I am just trying to get a brainstorming session going.
Kingdom growth through church planting, as we are doing it right now, is struggling because of the economy. If it will only work in a good economy, it is not a good solution.
I'm just trying to pursue other lines of thoughts. I just wanted to see if there were any other ideas out there and discuss them.
I am very concerned about the church as a whole and the Church of God in particular. There must be another way to grow the Kingdom that does not require a lot of money.
Thank you anonymous, you are making the point that I understand very well. We are agreed, now who cares enough to add to the conversation. I think we have to go back to older models of individuals starting from scratch by establishing a presence and working from there. If the cutting edge of mission evangelism is kinda that way by nationals, why not here as well? When I was a very young pastor in a mission church, I had preaching places in outlying places where "saints" lived. I wasn't doing church planting, I was just trying to evangelize. I also think we need to strategize how to saturate regions. I once wrote a state program of evangelism for a class under Mack Caldwell, in this case for Texas, and strategized how to coordinate CBH radio to ssturate the state, coordinate cell groups in various places, etc etc. I still think it is doable, more so now than then because we have more resources and better trained people. Now somebody chew on this.
Lloyd, how do you encourage church planting? Do you coordinate any efforts when you know there are "isolated contacts"? Do you think at all in terms of coordinating multi-media, literature distribution, or any of a host of varieties of effort that would acquaint your area with the chog message? Is there any effort to encourage pastors to do their own strategizing for their area and following through on it? Are yu leading in this area?
Anonymous,
You are asking some fair questions. We have been dependent on a model that high resource dependent. It has worked, but I personally believe that if we were truly Kingdom focused, church planting would be much more natural.
Perhaps at the core of much of this are our beliefs and practices concerning the relationship of the Kingdom and the church. I don't see these well-formed among us.
Wayne,
Our district has seen a burst of church planting in the past few years, and it has taken several different forms, including the model that requires large amounts of money (which we have redirected from the assets of dying or closed churches). Beyond the techniques, however, must be individuals who have a passion for church planting. It is exciting to see, but sadly not that common.
I believe on some level the resource issue is a false dichotomy. High-priced evangelistic efforts are part and parcel to the kingdom life -- i.e. it costs us all we have, where our treasure is there our heart is. High resource models dependent upon giving out of abundance is not the commended model, giving all that you have is!
If our priority is evangelistic outreach and congregational multiplication we will make efforts at redirecting incoming resources to these efforts. The irony of taking resources from dead and closing congregations is that so often the mentality was survive, hold on to what we take in, hoard it up, have reserves, rather than sow it in fields of opportunity.
The other side of the issue is that individuals investing life on life, and congregations partnering in fostering personal investments and invitations produce the most consistent returns evangelistically. If we're making disciples in our churches, not church consumers the focus shifts outward and away from our sacrifices (financially or otherwise) to the privilege of serving in the kingdom, seeking it first and trusting God not our economic system to sustain us in lean times.
Hi again,
It's me Anon1.
I heard a pastor say the other day, "Stop inviting people to church and start inviting them into the Kingdom." I don't know if that was an original saying, but it sure rings true.
I don't think the average person in the pew has any idea how to invite someone into the Kingdom, i.e. lead them into salvation. Where and when did that break down in the church?
When I look into the scriptures, Kingdom growth was a much more personal idea. Each person was expected to tell others about Christ, and the church grew accordingly. There were relatively few "church planters," but there was much Kingdom growth. There are even instances of people starting cell groups in their homes unaware that they were starting a church. They were just telling people about Christ.
How do we begin to develop this kind of evangelism - people telling people about Christ? I'm all for living a holy life, but lifestyle evangelism is a cop-out. The Bible makes it plain that people need to hear the good news of Christ. Seeing is not enough.
The church has become timid. I even find myself fighting to overcome timidity. Has fear overcome the church?
Ok, enough rambling.
Here's the question: How do we get people back to the place where Kingdom growth happens on a daily basis, person by person, not just church by church?
Stan.
Wayne,
Establishing a presence.
That is an interesting idea. Can we do that in the US with so many churches available to people?
How do we establish a presence in the various cultures in the US and do it in a way that brings glory to Christ and growth to the Kingdom?
Stan.
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